Page 60 of Gave Proof Through the Night

I don’t have time to argue superstition with a grown man, because we hop back over the boards for our next shift. Jake breaks in alone, snaps one top shelf, and the whole building comes up out of its seats like we just won the whole thing instead of one goal in a whole five-game tournament.

I got the secondary assist on that one, a saucer pass that found Stone’s stick before Stone found Jake, and Stone skates the length of the ice just to slap my helmet before we settle back on the bench.

“That’s a filthy little pass,” he says, dropping in next to me, breathing hard, grinning wider.

“You made it look good.”

“I make everything look good.” He says it without a shred of irony, which is exactly why it’s funny.

For about ninety seconds I let myself feel something uncomplicated.

It lasts exactly until Houlihan ties it off a cross-ice feed, snapping it past Josh before he can square up.

“Rocket” is what they call him, and he skates the celly like he invented hockey. I skate back to the bench next to Levi, who lost that draw and has been chewing on it since.

“You good?” I ask him.

“I will be.” He isn’t looking at me. He’s looking at Houlihan. “That guy’s insufferable.”

Get in line. There’s already somebody ahead of him tonight.

Second period, they take the lead. Sullivan one-times a feed from the left circle before anybody can get a stick on it, and just like that we’re down 2-1, and I’m standing at the blue line replaying a museum sidewalk instead of watching a scoring chance develop. A guy could get benched for less.

We get two power plays off their penalties, back to back, holding and tripping, and on the second one Bryce gets a clean look from the slot and fires it wide, wide enough that he immediately turns to the bench and mouths I know before anyone can say it.

“Lucky socks,” I tell him when he sits down.

“Don’t.”

Late in the period, it gets chippy. Dante takes a slashing minor, Houlihan answers with a roughing call thirty seconds later and we head to the room down one, 4-on-4 waiting for us at the top of the third.

Badaszek doesn’t raise his voice between periods. He just stands at the whiteboard with a marker he doesn’t uncap and looks at us until the room goes quiet on its own.

“We won Monday. Today, we’re playing like we just learned to walk.” He caps and uncaps the marker once. Twice. “Nobody in this room gets to be tired tonight. Precio.” He looks straight at me. “You’re half a step slow on the forecheck. Whatever it is, leave it in the room.”

“Yes, Coach.”

“Good.” He almost smiles, which for Badaszek is the equivalent of a standing ovation. “Go get it back.”

Two minutes and twenty-one seconds into the third, Dash slides me a pass off the half wall. I one-time it, slap shot, top corner, and the net moves before Davis does. We’re tied, and I have hope we can turn this game around.

And then my goal song hits.

“La Bomba” comes through the speakers, Ricky Martin at full volume, and somewhere in the upper deck a cluster of Mexican flags unfurl like they’d been waiting all night to do it, and I stand there getting mobbed by my own teammates. And even though I was born in Miami, I’m laughing, thinking one clear, stupid, proud thought.

Mexicans. We’re everywhere.

Dash tackles me into the boards, screaming something I can’t make out over the song, and half my teammates are pointing up at the flags like I personally arranged for them to be there. Somewhere in Arizona, Abuelo is watching this on a delay and standing up out of his recliner right about now, and somewhere closer, in a building I can’t see from the ice, I hope a certain brown-eyed girl is watching too, even though I have no reason to think she would be.

For four seconds, I forget about everything else entirely.

The lead doesn’t last. Marchand puts them back ahead with a snap shot off a feed from Houlihan, who has now scored, assisted, and taken a penalty in the same game. A Gordie Howe hat trick, like that’s supposed to make it hurt less.

Later in the game, it gets desperate in both directions. Nobody on either bench is sitting anymore. Tyson drives the net hard enough to earn Davis’s full attention and gets robbed point blank, glove side. At the other end, Brady fires a wrist shot that should go in, and Josh drops flat and kicks it out of the air. Yes!

Dante picks up a ten-minute misconduct with under three to play, which brings his night to fourteen penalty minutes and a look on Coach Badaszek’s face that I would not want directed at me.

We pull Josh in a desperate attempt to win with an extra attacker, but with the empty net, Reeves puts it away from center ice with sixteen seconds left. The horn goes off, and that's the game. 4-2. We lost, but the series is tied. We have to prove ourselves next match.